New England Patriots get boost after break

FOXBORO 
With the Patriots getting last weekend off, Devin McCourty headed to his mom's house in northern New Jersey to see firsthand how she making out in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Unlike a lot of folks on the East Coast, the news was good.

“There were some power outages, but not a lot of damage,” McCourty said yesterday as he returned to work at Gillette Stadium. “I would say she was pretty fortunate.”

Phyllis Harrell lives in Montville, which is located slightly northwest of New York City in a home purchased for her last year by Devin and his twin brother Jason, a cornerback for the Tennessee Titans. Her lack of electricity was rectified when Devin showed up with a generator.

McCourty then went into a personal energy-saving mode, getting physically and mentally refreshed for the second half of the season with some rare in-season quality family time.

The Patriots' coaching staff, front office and many of the players engaged in some serious self-scouting during the break. McCourty opted to streamline the process.

“The bye week gives you some time, but I don't think now is the time to go back and try to access the whole first half of the season,” the third-year defensive back said. “I think it was more focusing as a team and individually on the things you can improve on and how they can affect you going forward.”

The consensus is McCourty is playing somewhere between his rookie season, when he was named second-team All-Pro, and last year, when he got lit up more than a Bic at an Aerosmith concert during a season-long sophomore slump.

McCourty has been the best of a bad secondary, one that rank 28th in the league in pass defense. He leads the Patriots with nine passes defensed and has two interceptions, a total that could easily be five if not for drops.

And according to espnboston.com, he has played a team-high 97.8 percent of the defensive snaps. Perhaps most impressive is they've come at two positions.

McCourty started the first six games at cornerback. He moved to safety two games ago due to injuries to starters Steve Gregory and Patrick Chung.

McCourty was used at safety toward the end of last season. He also played the position in high school and during his first two years in college, at Rutgers, so he has previous experience.

He also the complete confidence of his coach.

“I would say he's pretty good at everything,” Bill Belichick said. “He's a good tackler, he's fast, he's instinctive. He has a good feel for the game wherever you put him in terms of leverage, angles, decisions, that kind of thing. He's smart. He has the mental flexibility to go back and forth between assignments and that kind of thing.”

McCourty's shift to safety has seemed to bring some cohesiveness to a secondary that has had to deal with a lot of moving parts due to injury and ineffectiveness. That's come through recognition and communication.

“I have a good knowledge of what our corners are doing, so I think a little bit of that helps,” McCourty said. “I can see things and then communicate with them to let them know I'm on the same page with them. It helps them out a lot, and just my experience from corner helps me out with that aspect.”

Whether McCourty remains at safety or reverts to cornerback once the injury situation is resolved hasn't been announced. He shrewdly claimed to not have a preference for where he played.

However, there are plenty of people outside the organization who think McCourty, a defensive captain, is better suited for safety.

He's had trouble tracking the ball while keeping up with receivers at cornerback. That's less of an issue at safety, where the focus is on keeping the action of front of him.

In addition, his leadership and communication skills aren't as negated as when he's isolated at cornerback.

“You get used to seeing more of the field, and I think you have more of a responsibility because you have that viewpoint to let everyone know,” McCourty said. “I know when you're playing corner, it's not as easy to see the different things that you see on film when you're just on that side of the field. So I try to communicate and let guys know if I see anything from film study that might happen to send that alert out.”